This week’s personal finance tip is about unit pricing when shopping at the grocery store.
It is a simple thing to walk through the aisles and know exactly where your favorite products reside and grab them.
Brand Loyalty
Now as we all know, retailers have sales on hundreds of products and everyone likes to save a few dollars in the budget.
Some people do not like to switch to other products just because there’s a better deal on a similar item; and there is nothing wrong with brand loyalty; however, there’s value in getting a quality product for a quality price.
Unit Price Savings
So with that being said, I recently went to Kroger to get almond milk to make smoothies and my plan was to get the 96-ounce jug seeing that we drink a lot of it. So then I saw the price tag at $5.99 and right next to it was a brand that was 64-ounces selling for $1.99.
Therefore, I did some quick math and determined that I could get 128 ounces for $3.98 or get 96 ounces for $5.99.
This means that we could drink 32 more ounces for $2.01 less. The only difference is the brand’s weren’t from the same company.
In our case this did not phase us especially since we don’t taste the milk in the smoothie.
This is similar to when ordering a margarita; I do not order top shelf brands because I won’t detect the difference from the well brand.
An Easy Way to Help Your Budget
The simple lesson here is to pay attention when shopping for products especially for the items that are not fixed costs in the budget each month.
In citing our example, is saving $2.01 going to make a large impact on the budget? The answer is no; however, it’s about saving and spending habits that add up over time.
When you incorporate this mindset, it is amazing the amount of money that can be saved just with eating habits alone.
The result is that additional money will begin to show up in your budget at the end of the month.
This also creates a snowball effect. For example, you can get a grande size cup of coffee at Starbucks with that money and guess what?
You’d still be saving $2.00 because that money doesn’t come out of the budget that was planned to be spent anyway. When reducing cost and without additional consumption, that is a winning formula to have more money to control debt and build savings.
So give it a shot! Take one month to watch your consumption and buy familiar brands that are on sale and see how much it adds up.
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